


(Not) The Spare Bedroom

by vertual



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Molly's flat as a bolthole, No romo, yes tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-06
Packaged: 2018-03-10 10:28:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3286976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vertual/pseuds/vertual
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Just the spare bedroom. Well, my bedroom. We agreed he needs the space."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick how-I-imagine-it-happened because let's be real, the "we agreed" part was kinda bull. Set somewhere around the end of S1.

After too many six-day work weeks, it became a Saturday night tradition of Molly's to don her cosiest pyjamas and sit in front of the telly with a mug of tea, her phone silenced, and her cat lounging nearby. Meena and Caroline sometimes could convince her to come out for drinks, but most times the only thing on her mind was her weekend, no matter how short it would be. Sunday was a day for relaxing, not for being hungover.

She was halfway through her list of the past fortnight’s recorded shows when the buzzer by the door went off with an insistent second-long ring. Dropping the remote control and placing her tea on a coaster with an exaggerated sigh, Molly pulled herself to her feet and trudged to the intercom, the hems of her too-long fleece bottoms swishing against the wood laminate.

 _Probably for Mitchell_ , she thought, knowing her young next-door neighbour's habit of muting his buzzer at night and forgetting to flip the switch back the next day. More than likely he was going out to the pub with some friends....

Pressing the button to connect to the lobby, she answered with a “Hello?” that held a hint of annoyance she couldn’t be bothered to mask. She was rather unimpressed by the interruption to her admittedly unexciting evening.

"It's me," a familiar deep voice replied, a thin layer of static accompanying the words as they travelled up the beaten line. "Can I come in?"

Molly stood in stunned silence for a moment, thrown off by Sherlock's blunt greeting before it dawned on her that she’d never given him her home address. "I... How do you know where I live?"

"I asked." She could almost see him brushing away the question with a wave of his hand.

Instead of responding, she disconnected with a scowl. She’d dealt with him enough this week; there was no place for him in her thirty-six hours of peace before her alarm rang on Monday morning.

_But what if he actually needs your help?_

Sensing he was still there, Molly returned her finger to the button and asked, “What do you want?” It came out more sharply than she would have liked, but at that moment, she was less interested in the man’s brilliance than she was in the fact that he was at her home badgering her to open the front door.

“Refuge.”

Rolling her eyes at the dry non-answer, Molly found herself hitting the button to unlock the front door anyway, hoping Sherlock was in more of a mood to silently pout than to run his mouth. She pulled the deadbolt so he could enter when he reached her door, and then returned to the sofa to drop back onto it with a huff. Then, remembering company was ever so delightfully on its way, she jumped back up to fetch her dressing gown from the back of her bedroom door.

She was most of the way to her tiny kitchen when Sherlock entered with a single tap on the door, his eyes moving around her open sitting room-dining room combination with interest before finally landing on her.

“Are you okay?” Molly found herself asking, taking in the unpleasant greyish tone to his skin. Haggard Sherlock wasn’t something she’d seen before and the way he wore it was worrying at best. “I was just about to put the kettle back on....”

“Thank you,” he said quietly, before busying himself with his coat and shoes.

 _Staying awhile?_ Molly thought to herself as she took the last few steps to the three-walled room, hauling the heavy kettle off the stove and topping it off before setting it back on the element to boil again. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Sherlock make his way farther into the sitting room, going for the armchair on the far side of the sofa. Guessing he wouldn’t be moving, she busied herself with preparing a new mug of tea, fighting whatever bug was hitting Sherlock with a blend her mother demanded she keep on hand, and hiding the potent brew in an unassuming pale yellow mug. She’d always found the stuff tasted a bit terrible, but if it worked, it worked. And it certainly did work.

When she returned to the living room Sherlock was sitting with his face in his hands, only raising his head when she placed his tea on a coaster in front of him. He reached for it with mumbled thanks, bringing the mug to his nose as he sat back. She picked up her own mug and was pleased to discover it was still on the better side of warm.

“What do you need from me?” Molly asked, not forgetting that she wanted to know why he was really here.

“A bolthole. I can’t sleep,” he replied easily, a hint of bitterness in his tone. “John bringing his annoying girlfriend round for whatever wasn’t doing anything to help that fact.”

“And you thought my flat was a good choice?”

“The logic was there,” he said with a shrug. “I didn’t intend to interrupt your... evening,” he added, gesturing to the television, her to-watch list still open on screen. “I just need somewhere quiet to recuperate.”

“So you want to sleep here.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No.” The answer came out more quickly than he seemed to expect, since he looked at her over his mug with a raised brow at her lack of hesitation. “You can sleep in my room.”

“You have a spare bedroom,” he said with a furrowed brow, glancing over his shoulder at the door to said room. “Or would we—?”

“No,” she cut in, feeling her ears turn red at the very idea he was about to present. She definitely hadn’t stopped fancying him, but she wasn’t shameless. “I’ll stay in the spare room.”

“It’s _your_ bedroom.”

“And I decide what to do with it,” she maintained. “Look, Sherlock. The walls are thin here and if you need quiet, that’s the better side of the flat to be on. And if you need to pace or something, there’s more floor.” She tacked on the last bit remembering some of the autopsies he’d observed, and how he’d walk back and forth while he listened to her commentary.

He opened his mouth to argue back but she cut him off before he could get a word in. “No, Sherlock. You need the space. Take it or leave it.”

She’d never been this insistent; she’d never really known how to be. She did care for him as a person; she didn’t just stick around because she was fascinated by his eerie magnetism. The way Molly usually was around him did feel like she gave off a heavy air of passivity, but the longer she got to know Sherlock the more her confidence was able to come through. Now, with him actually making an attempt to _ask_ for help instead of just _expecting_ assistance, she found that she was able to take control of the situation, for once.

To her surprise and relief, he nodded slowly.

“All right. Now drink your horrible tea,” she commanded, determined to have him leave her flat feeling better. She liked to call it _slosh and sleep_ : a big cup of pungent tea followed by a well-earned rest.

Molly sat back as Sherlock obediently took a careful sip, scrunching his nose and looking down at the dark liquid quizzically before taking another, larger drink. His eyes found their way back to her face and he cocked a brow at her over the lip of the yellow mug. She returned the face, feeling assured enough to challenge him if he were to make any sort of comment—

“This is incredible.”

Or if he was going to be pleasant, she might just surrender her TV night to spend some quiet time with company.

Either way, Molly found she didn’t really mind giving refuge.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I personally believe that Sherlock was crushing on Molly way before S3. That is all.

Sherlock stared down at the last drop of tea at the bottom of the garish mug and made a note to turn toward Molly next time his immune system turned on him. He supposed he could just ask her to write down the instructions for her so-called horrible tea, but even as a chemist he knew he couldn’t get something like this right. The tastes of honey and cinnamon and apple and lemon all melted together into an almost overbearingly sweet mixture that warmed him to his toes, easing some of the aching in his exhausted limbs. Each day of the past week had been more difficult than the previous, and now, finally, he thought he might be able to get a decent amount of sleep at night.

Coming to Molly seemed to have been rather a good idea. For a moment he thought she might not let him in at all and when he entered her flat he expected her to throw him out, but neither event had occurred, and for that he was grateful. He didn’t simply appreciate her as a resource, but as a trusted colleague and friend. He would thank her properly, repay her at some point. For now, though, his focus was on the fact that he still mostly felt halfway to death. It was the downside to being otherwise very healthy: when he shut down, he shut right down.

Every inhalation sent a sharp pain straight upward, cutting off his ability to think in depth, leaving him feeling unpleasantly ignorant about his surroundings. He couldn’t be bothered to squint at the framed photographs set around the flat to identify their subjects and had only been able to determine which of the three rooms off from the main room was which.

He was content to leave Molly to watch her programmes while he nursed his tea, and it seemed she didn’t mind either. The sound coming from the television made his already throbbing headache only slightly worse; the subtle high-pitched noise in the background was mercifully constant, so he’d been able to mostly tune it out, but he couldn’t do much for anything else. His auditory filter was fried, every noise coming at him from every direction. He was glad that Molly spoke as softly as she did, otherwise he’d have either fled to find a quiet attic to sleep in or else lay down on the floor clutching his skull and moaning like a dying animal.

 _That would probably be a bit overdramatic,_ he decided.

“I’d like to sleep now,” he announced as he placed his mug back on the coaster Molly set in front of him. His lack of energy was plain in the way the words came out without inflection, but he didn’t care to try and mask it. Molly could tell the moment she saw him that he was beat.

_No point in pretending at all._

“Sure,” Molly said, pausing the TV and rising to her feet with a stretch.

He followed as she led him to her room, which, to his surprise, was remarkably plain: simple blue duvet, off-white walls, fair-sized window with blackout curtains, the usual unexciting furnishings of a bedroom, and a nice amount of extra space. He didn’t care to analyse any of it.

“I’ll be on the other side of the loo,” she said, standing with one foot out of the room. “Which you can use, obviously. I don’t have any, um, sleepwear for you—”

“It’s fine,” he assured her, managing a small smile in her direction. “I’ve slept in my clothes before.”

“Right.” She hovered for a moment, looking at the floor before bringing her eyes back up to meet his. He wished she wouldn’t act so nervous. He liked her much better when she was poised. “Um, Toby might scratch to come in, but he gives up pretty quickly, and once he’s settled he won’t move for anything, so he shouldn’t bother you.”

“Thank you, Molly.”

With a quick nod and her usual dimpled smile, she mumbled a goodnight and closed the door behind her, leaving him in dark silence.

Eager to get to sleep, Sherlock shrugged off his jacket and tossed it over the footboard of Molly’s bed, paying no mind to the rest of his clothes and dropping onto the mattress, getting comfortable on his stomach on top of the bedspread. He lay with both arms under the pillow, and as he quickly drifted off, his only thought was that Molly was a marvellous person indeed.

* * *

 

As it often did in sleep, time seemed to pass almost instantly. He’d certainly slept through the entire night, not once getting up to pace as Molly expected he might – as he expected he might. The room had been silent and warm, the bed comfortable, and the cat absent, although he wouldn’t have minded having the warm body nearby.

He pushed himself up with a groan, his limbs aching not from illness but from lack of movement, and looked around for a clock in the darkened room. Seeing none – obvious, she used her phone as an alarm – he stood, stretched, and padded to the window, pulling the curtain back to reveal what looked like an afternoon sun. He turned his back on the light with a large yawn and picked up his jacket, straightening out his slightly wrinkled clothing before opening the door and heading for the bathroom, and then back to the main room where Molly sat on the sofa, reading a large leather-bound book.

“How did you sleep?” she asked immediately, looking up at him over the pages. “You look much better.”

“I feel much better,” he admitted, stopping at the arm of the sofa. And he did feel an improvement: his head was clear with no battering drums to bother him, he still felt tired but he wasn’t sore, and above all, he was rested. His reflection certainly looked a lot less haggard than it had done yesterday morning.

“Sometimes you just need to beat it into submission and sleep it off,” Molly acknowledged, giving him a smile. “It’s almost two but I can make you something to eat, if you want.”

“No.” He very nearly flinched at how quickly it came out. He was hungry – there was another nagging feeling in his gut begging him to stay – but Sunday was a busy day for in-and-out clients, and the idea of getting back to work was a lot less frightening than whatever that sensation was. Clearing his throat somewhat awkwardly, he simply said, “I’ll be on my way. Thank you, for the tea and for letting me stay.”

“You’re welcome.” Molly smiled warmly as he made his way to the door to leave. “Next time, text me first. I’ll have your horrible tea ready when you get here.”

Sherlock felt himself grin brightly as he opened the door to leave. Turning to look over his shoulder, he saw Molly doing the same from the sofa. Letting himself out of her flat, he held the door open and replied, “Your word is _lovely_ , Molly Hooper.”

He wasn’t sure if he meant the tea or the woman herself, but as he let the door swing shut behind him, he decided the word could apply to both.


End file.
